


DOLLHOUSE

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst as Hell, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Dark, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, but that is not really explained in depth, do not read, don't worry it's not hella relevant, peggy carter is a goddamned saint, probs doesnt make sense sorry, steve was never frozen, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 03:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3835537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everyone thinks that we're perfect.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Please don't let them look through the curtains.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	DOLLHOUSE

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based on the song Dollhouse by Melanie Martinez.  
> Lyrics [here.](https://play.google.com/music/preview/T2x2jyvbdcricjy72lxva5wtbru?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics)
> 
> This is really just a quick thing I did to release some pent up emotion so it may not make much sense, sorry!
> 
> [EDIT] changed some details.

"Ugh, fuck..." Captain America groaned as he slid away from his wife. Peggy's hips quivered and she gripped the sheets into her fists hard, but otherwise, she did not move. Steve sat up quickly, too quickly, as he always did after they had sex. They did not do so often. He fled to the bathroom and took a shower, again, as he always did with Peggy. He pretended he could not hear her sniffles over the sound of the shower running.

But he could. He always heard. He'd never seen Peggy cry, but she did an awful lot of it when she thought he couldn't hear. It was his fault. It was. He'd ruined the damned marriage. He was still ruining it. Steve was too far gone now.

He was too deep between sheets, too tangled up in the way Bucky's sweat-slicked skin smelled. Steve was Captain America for Christ's sake. Nobody could know. And yet, everyone who mattered already did. So, who was Steve still trying to fool?

Steve was going down, and, God forgive him, he was dragging everyone he loved down with him.

•••

James Buchanan Barnes, formerly known as the Winter Soldier, hadn't heard his real name in a long time when he collapsed, cold, wet, and shivering, on the doorstep of American hero Steve Rogers. He wasn't even sure he remembered it until he heard it.

"...Bucky?"

Nowadays, he didn't hear that much from Steve anymore. He heard "baby", "oh God", and "I love you". It was all the same to Bucky anyway. His identity was always intrinsic to Steve's validation of it. Steve could call him anything he wanted, and that's who Bucky would be. Forever and ever, amen.

Steve was trying to stitch his old friend together from pieces of the Winter Soldier. But Bucky wasn't sure that old friend existed anymore.

At least, it didn't feel that way when Steve fucked him into the mattress. Bucky didn't feel like an "old friend" when his whole body shuddered with release beneath America's greatest hero. He wasn't sure what he felt like then. He knew only two things for sure:

The first--Bucky was heels-over in love with Steve.

The second--Steve was in love with his wife.

And even when he felt used and broken and tired and so goddamned heavy, even when he scratched his skin with pins and picked his scabs, even when he wanted to scream and cry and throw things and hit Steve in his smile, he still said "I love you" back. Because he would always love Steve. He would always run back to him.

•••

Peggy took a shaky gulp of her wine. The party and the guests and the drink were making her hands shake even worse than usual. Her hands rarely stopped quivering these days, though no one seemed too keen on pointing it out. She smiled almost maniacally as she passed guests, and they smiled back. Her heels sunk into the carpet with each step, but she walked steadily, gripping the stem of her wine glass until she felt it might snap.

"Evening, Mrs. Rogers," a guest smiled. She'd actually kept her last name after marrying, but that meant fuck-all to most. The name, Mrs. Rogers, grated on her nerves. If anyone was Mrs. Rogers, it was Bucky Barnes. All three knew that well. But, appearances must be kept.

It was selfish, Peggy knew, but she sometimes wished Bucky Barnes hadn't come home. And it was _his_ home, moreso than it was Peggy's.

Sometimes, she wished he was dead.

And sometimes, if she was being honest, she wished she was dead, too. The façade of the perfect American family was ruining her. But what was she to do about it? They couldn't well divorce; they were America's Golden Couple! They were supposed to be perfect.

Everyone thought they were perfect.

•••

Steve didn't kiss Bucky the same way he kissed Peggy. When he kissed Peggy, he did it the way one might hold a baby bird--gingerly, as if she might break the way Steve broke shot glasses on the concrete of the porch one night, just to watch them shatter. With his strength, she very well could have.

But when Steve kissed Bucky, he did it like his lips were the only thing holding Bucky together. He wrapped his arms so tight around that body that he was not yet used to being taller than. Steve didn't think he'd ever get used to being taller than Bucky.

Steve knew he was being unfair to Peggy. He knew he was being unfair to Bucky. He knew he was being awful but goddamn did he love this sin. What could he do about it anyway? He'd already married Peggy, and even if they divorced, would Bucky even want more from Steve? Steve most definitely did not deserve it. Despite all of this, at the end of the day, if Bucky and Peggy were both hanging off a cliff, and he could only save one, he knew who he'd save.

If only to avoid watching Bucky slip out of his grasp again.

•••

Bucky gripped Steve as though his life depended on him as he came--and his life very well did, if he thought too long on it--and Steve hugged him close to his body as he rode out the aftershocks of his orgasm. He snuggled close, not worrying about cleaning himself off or getting redressed. Bucky just wanted Steve close to him, and Steve wanted the same. Their bodies fit together as though they were statues carved from the same stone.

"I love you so much, Bucky," Steve whispered into his hair. Bucky felt himself crack under the weight of those words.

"I love you, too, Stevie," he murmured back softly. God did he love that man. It was the last thing they were able to scrape out of his brain. Even when he didn't remember his own name or his mother's face, he _remembered_ those blond eyelashes. He had never loved the way he loved Captain America. He could not even be mad that he was just a sidepiece to Steve. How could Bucky compare to Peggy? Peggy, who was pretty and brave, who had no trouble speaking her mind, who could stand under the weight of being in love with Captain America, who was _whole_. She had both her arms and all her memories and her heart was still in one piece. How could Bucky beat that?

He wondered if Steve whispered the same things into her hair that he whispered to Bucky.

•••

Peggy wiped her eyes and her hand came away black with mascara. She could hear them. They thought she was still out, but she had come home early. Why? To catch them for once? To call them out and end this charade where everyone pretended everyone else didn't know? She wasn't sure why; she just had to see for herself. She was in the foyer, pressed against the wall, heels in her hand. She was silent as the grave. She heard Steve whisper sweet nothings to Bucky, though she only caught snippets--"I love you", "oh god", "baby", " _hot_ ", "yes, ah".

Peggy let her head fall back against the wall as she shoved the side of her hand into her mouth to keep her anguished sobs from escaping her red-smeared lips. Oh _God_ , in her _kitchen_. On _her_ countertops. And worse yet, Steve never treated her that way. He never whispered things like that to her. He never even spoke when they had sex. And that's what it was. Steve and Peggy had sex, but Steve and Bucky? Steve and Bucky _made love_. She knew then, as she sank to floor to the sound of her husband's orgasm, that this was as much as she could take.

She was going to get a divorce.

•••

"I'm sorry."

"I know. You should be."

"I... there's nothing I can say to make this better, is there?"

"No, Steve. There isn't. I hate myself for it, but I love you. I think--"

"Peggy? Oh God, please don't cry."

"I think I'll always love you."

"I'll... always love you, too, Peggy."

"...But not the way you love _him_."

"I..."

"My things are already packed."

•••

That was the first time Bucky had seen Steve really cry. Or maybe he had before and couldn't remember, as with many things, but the sight jarred him nonetheless. Bucky held Steve long into the night, shushing him. Steve cried for Peggy, but really, it was his fault. He knew that. She deserved so much better.

Before Bucky had come back from the dead, Steve could not have truly said that he hadn't loved Peggy Carter. Steve would always love her, Bucky knew. Steve was many things, but he was first and foremost a man of his word.

Still, selfishly, Bucky's heart soared as Steve's tears stained his body. He was finally, a hundred percent, no sharing, _his_. He kissed the top of Steve's head, something he couldn't do while standing anymore, and regretted that he hadn't done so more when he was still taller than Steve.

Maybe then, none of this would have ever happened in the first place.

•••

_**The following year...** _

"Steve. You look... better," Peggy said, resigned. They hadn't seen each other since the divorce--a quiet and quick affair. Steve smiled nervously at her.

"You too, Pegs," he tested.

"Don't call me that. Not anymore," she stated sharply. Her air of professionalism had returned to her at some point in the last twelve months in which he hadn't seen her. Steve nodded his apology and looked down at the ground.

Peggy reached out and firmly tilted his gaze back to her face. Her eyes were hard, a little sad, but mostly questioning. Steve swallowed. He'd missed her, honestly, but he had never been happier than he was at that point in his life. With Bucky. She seemed to find what she was searching for in his expression and nodded sharply. She let him go and waved her goodbyes.

Her hands no longer shook.

•••

Steve smiled up at the sky as Peggy walked away.

The struggle wasn't yet over, but he felt like the biggest hurdle had been jumped. He felt ready for whatever life had to throw at him next.

After all, he was Captain America, for Christ's sake.


End file.
